Stepping back from the choice of which threaded insert..........my question would be why use threaded inserts? I have had problems of them stripping out of the end-grain in the neck, as have other people. Perhaps your hardware or technique are better than mine, but it just seems like a sub-optimal method to me. I use barrel bolts inserted in a hole drilled up from the heel. Even stronger is the method described in the Gore/Gilet books. They cut a square channel up from the heel and inserting a square-profile brass tube, into which there are threaded holes for the bolts. That method seems completely bullet-proof, but I am not tooled up to cut the square hole.

I prefer the zinc inserts with the broken thread. I think the bite a little deeper into relatively soft hardwoods like walnut and mahogany.

I want the bolts to be a softer material than the inserts. If, in the unlikely circumstance either needs to be replaced, I want it to be the bolt, which can simply be replaced, rather than the insert, the replacement of which would be quite the chore...

Stepping back from the choice of which threaded insert..........my question would be why use threaded inserts? I have had problems of them stripping out of the end-grain in the neck, as have other people. Perhaps your hardware or technique are better than mine, but it just seems like a sub-optimal method to me. I use barrel bolts inserted in a hole drilled up from the heel. Even stronger is the method described in the Gore/Gilet books. They cut a square channel up from the heel and inserting a square-profile brass tube, into which there are threaded holes for the bolts. That method seems completely bullet-proof, but I am not tooled up to cut the square hole.

Because if you get the right threaded insert your problems with them more or less disappear.

I'm not too concerned with 'stronger', it only needs to be 'enough' strong to hold the neck immobile under string tension.

Definitely the G/G method is the best, but, at 1599 base, not really practical for me.

If you're worried about the inserts stripping the endgrain, you can drive a 3/4" dowel up through the heel and put the inserts into that, which I have done in the past both as a preventive object in soft Spanish cedar, and as a restorative effort in same. In Khaya, my main neck wood these days, it simply isn't a problem.

Having gone from dovetail, to M&T, to double M&T, to bolt on butt joint with glued tongue, I don't find the last system subpar by any means at all. I had first considered it that myself, and had intended only to use it on my budget line, but once I saw how excellently it works, it's now my only neck joint.

When my base price for the fancy stuff is 5k$, I'll consider moving to the 'better' method in the G/G books, but even then not so much because I think the extra work yields a practical payoff, but so I can point to it as part of why it's 5k$.

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